Page 83 of The Dixon Rule

“Stone-cold evil. All of you,” he accuses, then shoves the towel at me. “You don’t even deserve this towel.”

Dave snickers under his breath.

Marnie redirects the group back to the topic at hand. “The renter of Sweet Birch 1A arrived today,” she tells me.

Veronika saunters over in her white cover-up. “Are we talking about the Garrisons’ rental?”

Marnie nods. “We just saw him in the parking lot unloading some boxes. He’s going to be staying here the full six weeks. Handsome guy. Young.”

Veronika perks up. “How young?” she inquires. Because she’s Veronika and she’s gross.

“I don’t know, maybe mid to late twenties?” Marnie answers. “He said he’s a grad student at Briar.”

Guard shooting up, I tighten my grip on the towel. “Did you catch his name?”

Dave purses his lips. “Peter something?”

His wife lets out a laugh. “Honey. Peter? How can you forget his name? It was Percival.”

Shock slams into me. Oh my fucking God.

No.

Absolutely not.

“Percival?” I burst out, anger whipping inside me. “Are you sure that was his name?”

“Unlike this doofus”—Marnie points at her husband—“it’s not a name I’m likely to forget.”

Priya eyes me in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s my ex.” I wrap the towel tighter around me, already backing away from their table. “I’m sorry, I have to go and figure out what the hell is going on.”

Shane chases after me as I hurry toward our chairs to throw on my clothes. I gather my stuff and leave the pool area, Shane on my tail as we step onto the main path.

“That can’t possibly be your ex moving into our building,” he says in amusement. “Can it?”

“Sure sounds like it,” I mutter, and I want to tell him it’s not even remotely funny. It’s the furthest thing from funny. But I can’t say a word because I already lied to him about how I got this bruise. “Do you know any other Percivals who are grad students at Briar?”

“No, but I’m sure there has to be another one.”

“Oh, fuck off, Shane. Come on.”

“Hey, don’t take it out on me.”

Panic fills my throat and weakens my palms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m just…”

I stop walking and bury my face in my hands for a moment, trying to calm myself. If Percy is actually in Meadow Hill, I don’t know what I’m going to do. What can I do?

Something else suddenly occurs to me, a reminder of what I said to Percy the night he hit me.

“Oh my God,” I groan into my palms. I lift my head and stare at Shane helplessly. “The last time I saw Percy, I told him you were my boyfriend.”

Shane’s amusement returns in the form of a loud laugh. “What? Why would you do that?”

“Because apparently this is a thing we do now, okay? We tell our exes that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend.”

My hands are still shaking. I press them to my sides and hope Shane doesn’t notice. What game is Percy playing? He punches me and then moves into my apartment complex? I want to cry, but I put on a steely face and pretend I’m angry about the latter and not the former.

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